


No Forgiveness

by waterbird13



Series: Tumblr Fics [120]
Category: Leverage
Genre: Eliot doesn't think well of himself, Eliot thinks he's a monster, Multi, Post season three, could be OT3 or could be gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-12
Updated: 2016-08-12
Packaged: 2018-08-08 08:28:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 485
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7750513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waterbird13/pseuds/waterbird13
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There’s a monster inside of himself somewhere, and Eliot doesn’t much like mirrors.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Forgiveness

**Author's Note:**

> This is another piece from Tumblr.
> 
> Warnings: it's set post-season three, so Eliot's reflecting on what he did--Hardison in the pool, picking up a gun. He runs away, doesn't think too well of himself.

Eliot’s never felt better.

And he’s never felt worse.

Moreau is gone, forever, in a prison beneath a city in a tiny country finally back in the right hands, never to reemerge. His damage is done.

But there was damage done. A lot of it by Eliot.

A good deal of it recent.

He picked up that gun.

He let them push Hardison into that pool.

It doesn’t matter if he was counting every second, that he’s the type of person who knows to the milisecond how much time he has to revive someone before brain damage–or brain shutdown–sets it. It doesn’t matter if he saved Nate and that Italian and himself and started the dominoes that took down Damien Moreau.

He did it. Again.

There’s a monster inside of himself somewhere, and Eliot doesn’t much like mirrors. Mostly he’s accepted it, because he does have to live with himself. He’s a monster. End of story.

He’s a worse monster than usual lately.

They don’t–they’re criminals, they’ve never lied about that, they’ve never pretended to be something they’re not. But they said it upfront. Hardison used computers to do amazing things, Parker snuck in right under your nose and never even crossed a person. Nate was a damn criminal mastermind, but an insurance cop. Sophie talked people out of their valuables.

Eliot killed them. It’s a stain on him and always will be.

It’s the coward’s way out, and he knows it, but he doesn’t know what else to do. He doesn’t go back with the others. Once they’re off the plane, he separates, heading away from Boston. Down South, where it’s quiet, where he can pick up some work of the more conventional kind, slip away.

Coward, for not facing them. Not letting them decide.

At least they don’t _have to_  decide now, he thinks. Because they’re criminals, but they’re good. Maybe Parker. Maybe Nate, although he won’t, not over this. They could maybe do it. Hardison, though, even after what Eliot did to him, he never would. Doesn’t have it in him.

He’s working on a damn peanut farm in Georgia, not something he has much experience with but he learns fast, he’s strong and quick and takes direction well when it suits him. It’s quiet, no one knows him and no one cares. He hasn’t even hit a person in almost a month.

There’s a note on his dump of an apartment’s pillow when he gets back that night.

 _Come Home_.

It’s not a benediction. It’s not forgiveness, and it won’t absolve him of his sins. It’s an order, but Eliot is going to follow it.

They want him there. He’ll go, and take what they give.

He isn’t looking for forgiveness. But there’s something about them that makes the monster in him seem quieter, less real, and if they’ll give that back to him, he’ll gladly take it.


End file.
